In My Arms Again
by chocolatequeen
Summary: It had been a long day, crawling through ductwork, falling into a pit, and killing the Beast. But finally, Rose and the Doctor were together again. Post Satan Pit, part of As Time Goes By following Quiet Confessions


43: reunion kiss and 49: "Far too long since we've seen each other" hug.

Ida jolted awake when the TARDIS landed with a thud in the cargo bay of the rocket. "Where am I?" she asked, looking around the console room.

The Doctor smiled and offered her a hand. "Home, safe and sound," he told her as he pulled her to her feet.

She looked at the door, then at the Doctor, blinking a few times. "But… the planet… the pit. You were gone, Doctor."

"Only briefly," he said cheerily, bouncing lightly on his toes. "And I think that if you go through those doors, you'll find a couple of people who will be very glad to see you."

Ida nodded slowly, then took one more look around the console room before she shuffled to the door.

After she was gone, the Doctor circled the console a few times, adjusting dials and brushing some non-existent dust off the controls. The TARDIS quickly tired of his fiddling and zapped his fingers lightly.

"Ouch!" The Doctor shook his hand and pulled the heavy gloves off so he could pop the singed fingers into his mouth.

 _Be patient_ , she told him.

He sighed around his fingers. Patience was hard to come by today, when he'd come so close to losing Rose. He'd known believing in her was the right choice—the only choice, really—but destroying the gravity funnel when she was on the rocket had still been one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

The latch turned, and the Doctor yanked his hand out of his mouth. A moment later, the door opened and Rose stuck her head into the TARDIS, looking unaccountably wary.

Then she was running up the ramp, and he was racing to meet her. Rose leapt into his arms when they met, letting him pull her clean off her feet. He swung her back and forth, just rejoicing for a moment that this hadn't been taken from them. Her soft sigh against his neck told him she was thinking along the same lines.

The Doctor nuzzled into her hair, picking up her unique Rose scent underneath the dust and sweat left behind by her adventure. And beneath that… He sniffed again, then tightened his hold on her. Yes, beneath everything else, he could smell himself on her.

Lust surged through him, and he finally understood the human compulsion for sex following a narrow escape from death. He groaned and set Rose back on her feet, then he slid his hands down her back to squeeze her bum.

"Doctor," she breathed, looking up at him through her eyelashes, her full lips parted.

One of the Doctor's hands tangled in her hair as he tilted her head back to kiss her. His tongue slipped into her mouth without preamble, and he was torn between that earlier desperate realisation that they'd almost lost this, and rediscovering once again how good she tasted.

Rose sank her hands into his hair, and he groaned into her mouth at the sensation. She tugged lightly, and he nipped at her lower lip in return. When she scraped her nails against his scalp, he surrendered to the fire in his veins and pulled her even closer.

Remembering just in time that humans don't have respiratory bypass, he moved away from her mouth and pressed a trail of kisses along her jawline and neck. With each one, he whispered her name in his mind, along with words of love he wasn't yet brave enough to say out loud. The hand in her hair brushed against her temple, and he was sorely tempted to ask if she would be willing to share a telepathic link with him. Then he could show her, even if he couldn't say it.

Rose hands left his hair, and he vocalised his displeasure with a soft whine. She smiled and shook her head. "Let's get you out of this suit," she murmured, tugging on his zip.

The Doctor blinked when he looked down at himself. He'd forgotten he was still in the orange atmosphere suit. _And that means we're still on the rocket._ He put a hand over Rose's, then said, "Let's say goodbye and take off first, yeah?"

She took a shaky breath, then nodded. The Doctor quickly shed the outer suit, then pressed the comms button.

Rose played with her hair while the Doctor said goodbye to the crew of the rocket. Her body was still buzzing with a need to get as close to the Doctor as possible and never let him go, and she was having a hard time containing herself.

"But Doctor, what did you find down there?"

Ida's question got Rose's attention, and she stared intently at the Doctor, waiting for him to answer.

"That creature, what was it?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said, fiddling with some controls. "Never did decipher that writing. But that's good. Day I know everything? Might as well stop."

Rose frowned; people who didn't know the Doctor might not recognise that as an evasive answer, but she did. "What do you think it was, really?" she pressed, needing to know, needing him to tell her that it wasn't real.

"I think we beat it," he said firmly, but still without meeting her eyes. "That's good enough for me."

Rose licked her lips and said the one thing she knew would get his full attention. "It said I was going to die in battle."

The Doctor looked over at her, the Oncoming Storm swirling in his eyes at the threat to her. "Then it lied."

For the first time since she'd known him, the Doctor's promise wasn't completely reassuring. But looking at the shadows in his eyes and the desperation in the line of his jaw, Rose let it go with a soft smile and a nod. Whatever was coming, she and the Doctor would try to be prepared, and hopefully they could hold out together.

The Doctor took a deep breath and turned back to the time rotor. "Right, onwards, upwards. Ida? See you again, maybe."

"I hope so."

Rose bounced lightly on her toes and offered her own goodbye to her partners and rescuers. "And thanks, boys!"

The Doctor had his hand on the button when Ida asked one more question. "Hang on though, Doctor. You never really said. You two, who are you?"

He grinned down at Rose, and she felt the deferred desire come rushing back.

"Oh, the stuff of legend."

When the Doctor flipped the lever and the sound of the TARDIS in flight filled the console room, Rose turned to face him, resting one hip on the console. "Now," she said, running her fingers over his tie and unbuttoning his jacket when it got in her way, "what should we do next?"

The Doctor arched his eyebrow and placed his hands on her hips. His thumbs massaged the skin just above the waistband of her jeans, and Rose shivered at the touch.

"I think," he said, "that I just want to spend the rest of the night with you, in our bed. That all right?"

Rose's jaw dropped open slightly, and some of the confidence disappeared from the Doctor's face. "We don't have to," he said quickly. "But I thought…"

She clapped a hand over his mouth. "Our bed?"

An adorable furrow appeared on his forehead. "Well, I suppose location is negotiable?"

Rose rolled her eyes. "Doctor. _Our_ bed? You asking me to move in with you?"

"I thought you already had. We've slept in our—my room every night since we were first intimate." He tugged on his ear. "Is this some sort of milestone in human relationships that I'm clueless about?"

Rose giggled and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "A little, but it's fine," she reassured him. "I sorta thought, but I wasn't sure…"

The Doctor smirked down at her. "Rose. The TARDIS moved the majority of your wardrobe into my closet that first morning."

"I know." Rose also remembered what she'd worn instead that morning, and she grinned at him, letting her tongue peek out between her teeth.

He swooped down and gave her a firm kiss. Rose swayed into him and almost forgot their playful conversation, until he pulled back and pecked her on the nose before going on to his next point.

"And she enhanced the bathroom fixtures to your liking."

Rose undid his tie and the top two buttons of his shirt, then pushed herself up onto her toes so she could kiss the newly-exposed skin. "You're telling me you didn't have a whirlpool bathtub with jets before, Doctor?" she whispered against his neck

He sighed and tilted his head back. "I had a shower. Very nice, more than adequate, but nothing so luxurious as what she created for you."

She slid her hands over his chest and linked them behind his neck. "Well then, Doctor, why don't you carry me to our bed, and I'll tell you _my_ plans for the rest of the night?" Rose shrieked with laughter when the Doctor swept her up into his arms and carried her down the corridor, his long legs covering the distance to their room quickly.


End file.
